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View Full Version : Model 19 Crossovers - Help!



travisty
10-13-2008, 05:56 PM
My joy :applaud: in getting a pair of great-looking Model 19s this weekend turned into dismay :eek: because one of the speakers was silent in a first run (the other sounded quite nice). After doing the requisite cable and connection checks, channel changes, etc, I opened up the 'attenuator' panels and found that the air core inductors look like they have completely corroded - they look awfully gloopy.

The seller has offered a partial refund which should cover parts and labor cost if I can find a local tech who knows what to do (but the speakers are in the deep countryside in Japan).

I have the crossover schematic, but it will mean little to me without spending some time with an electronics textbook.

I have no qualms with getting a soldering iron and trying it myself, but would love to have some sort of a 'recipe' to guide me.

A couple of questions:
1) Is a self-done rebuild easily enough accomplished if one has a little expert guidance from the knowledgeable folk on the forum?
2) Does anyone have a "parts list" for a Model 19 crossover?
3) Is there an easy/cheap way to get them rebuilt to original specs? I have read posts in the past about Iconic crossovers but the website has little info, the price info I have seen in previous threads is old, and not terribly cheap. I may go that route eventually but would like to get them making some kind of music quickly.
4) What are my other choices?

Thanks in advance...

Zilch
10-13-2008, 07:19 PM
4) What are my other choices?A single or pair from eBay.

travisty
10-13-2008, 08:17 PM
I checked fleapay before asking (and found nothing). Am I missing something?

I cannot remember the model name for the crossover unit and searched and could not find the references I had found previously.

JBLRaiser
10-13-2008, 08:46 PM
I checked fleapay before asking (and found nothing). Am I missing something?

I cannot remember the model name for the crossover unit and searched and could not find the references I had found previously.

keep looking, it may take a week or two or three for some to show up.

travisty
11-30-2008, 04:53 AM
These M19s are in a second-house system, and after I had clipped all the wires off the attenuators and brought them back to the big city, I took a good look at them in the bright lights and noticed on the delinquent attenuator that one of the clipped wire ends had no clipped wire end and no solder joint, and another wire end had a terrible solder joint. I decided to do nothing to them, and take them back up to the shack. I bought a soldering iron and used one for the first time in 25yrs in soldering the 12 wires back on. A few minutes later and I had music, glorious music :applaud: .

I wanted to try a bunch of different combinations on the attenuators after setting them on 'Optimum' but I couldn't bother to get out of my chair except to switch from Johnny Lee Hooker to Eric Clapton to Jackson Browne...

Boy are these are nice speakers...
I would not hesitate to recommend them to anyone for the price.

JBLRaiser
11-30-2008, 08:30 AM
Sometimes it's a simple fix. What amp are you using with the 19's? Any tube gear? They sing with tubes, but give up some bass. Have fun.:applaud:

Gary L
12-01-2008, 12:46 PM
I checked fleapay before asking (and found nothing). Am I missing something?

I cannot remember the model name for the crossover unit and searched and could not find the references I had found previously.

Many of the Altec XOs are built on the same chassis but as far as I know only two match the Model 19 specs. One is the ones you have that say model Nineteen on them and the other is the 1201-8A. Others may say the 1209-8A is the same but that is not correct.

Gary

westend
12-02-2008, 12:02 AM
Glad they worked out for you. You might think about getting, at the very least, new air-core (or solid for that matter) inductors of the same value to replace the ones that are corroded. I'm pretty sure you are losing some sound because of that.

travisty
12-03-2008, 03:23 PM
Sometimes it's a simple fix. What amp are you using with the 19's? Any tube gear? They sing with tubes, but give up some bass. Have fun.:applaud:

Hi JBLRaiser,
For now I am using an EAR 859 amp. The 13.5W are quite nice. The treble sounds better than I expected - but EAR amps based on the EL519 seem to be good at that. The bass is also a bit better than I expected but given that the room is small, the speakers are backed into corners, and there is zero room treatment (other than the baby-poop brown vinyl-covered lounge chairs bought used and the woodsmoke soot on the walls), I am sure I can do better going forward. The EARs seem to do bass better than most 300B amps I have tried with similar efficiency speakers too, but I will be trying lots of amps when the opportunities arise.